Rudd has delayed debate on his ETS in the Senate. Looks like he is running scared:
The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, said the move was a major backdown.
”Mr Rudd is running at a million miles an hour from a double dissolution election on his great big new tax on everything,” he taunted.
Instead, Rudd is moving forward with his strategy to destroy private health care. First step is to introduce a means test which eventually over time will encompass middle to low income families. Secondly, once a health threshold is introduced it can be manipulated to fund spending on important projects like, mmmm, ahhhh, ceiling insulation. But of course Rudd would never introduced a means test on Medicare:
Parliament resumes next week and the government has made its top Senate priority debate on the bill to means test the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate.
The measure, worth $1.9 billion to revenue over the next three years, was blocked by the Senate in September. The opposition has vowed to block it again next week, which would make it a trigger for a double dissolution.
I can’t imagine Rudd would call an early election. Look what happened to the ALP in WA (lost) and in QLD (nearly lost and now destined to lose next election) when state leaders called early elections. It would also be a bit rich for Rudd to call an early election so he can be given the power in the Senate to break his election promises.
If Rudd wanted $950 million a year in extra tax revenue then what was he doing approving fee cuts for TV broadcasters worth $125 million a year, spending nearly $4 billion in ceiling insulation – the latest evidence indicates that 40 per cent of homes have government funded insulation that don’t satisfy Australian thermal standards, spending $42 billion on a 100 mps network when Telstra has been rolling out in Melbourne a network with similar speeds on its coaxial cables – and then there is the google network, high speed WiFi, etc…and spending billions more stimulating the government and import sectors instead of local industry as part of his ‘cash-o-rama save us from the GFC’, etc….and then there is the ETS, which if ever approved will cost Treasury billions in lost revenue from the destruction of Australia’s coal industry.